Cacao origins

A very small producer in the Toledo district, organised largely through Maya grower cooperatives and one of the earliest origins in modern direct-trade sourcing.

Associated with: earthy, nutty, fruity

A small producer with something almost nowhere else has: genuinely wild cacao, harvested from unplanted trees in seasonally flooded Amazon forest.

Associated with: fruity, acidic, nutty

Once among the world's largest producers, devastated by witches' broom disease in the 1990s, and now rebuilding — with the surviving shaded plantations turning out to be a conservation asset.

Associated with: nutty, earthy, fruity

A West-Central African producer known for unusually red-tinted cocoa powder, and for a drying practice that leaves a recognisable mark.

Associated with: roasted, earthy, bitter

A producer with strong Criollo and Trinitario heritage, a large domestic market, and a rapidly growing speciality export sector.

Associated with: nutty, caramel, fruity

A small producer, and the home of CATIE — the research centre whose germplasm collection and breeding programme have shaped cacao planting across Latin America.

Associated with: fruity, nutty, acidic

A small producer concentrated at the eastern end of the island, with most output historically absorbed by the domestic market.

Associated with: nutty, earthy

The largest source of certified organic cacao, and the origin that best demonstrates that fermentation, not genetics, is what separates a commodity bean from a fine one.

Associated with: fruity, earthy, nutty

The home of Nacional cacao and its distinctive floral aroma, and the origin where the gap between the marketing story and the crop in the ground is widest.

Associated with: floral, nutty, sweet

One of the two West African producers that between them grow most of the world's cacao, and the origin whose flavour most people think of as simply 'chocolate'.

Associated with: roasted, nutty, bitter

A tiny Caribbean producer, and one of the earliest places in the world where a chocolate maker manufactured on the island the cacao grew on.

Associated with: fruity, acidic, spicy

A small producer inside cacao's Mesoamerican heartland, where the crop has continuous cultural use going back millennia.

Associated with: nutty, spicy, earthy

A small producer where a shift from selling unfermented beans to centralised fermentation has visibly changed what the origin can offer.

Associated with: fruity, nutty, earthy

The only place in the United States that grows cacao commercially, at the extreme northern edge of the crop's range — and the most expensive cacao in the world.

Associated with: nutty, fruity, caramel

A growing Central American producer, with cacao planted partly as an alternative to less stable crops and a speciality sector building around the Wampusirpi and Copán areas.

Associated with: fruity, floral, nutty

A recent producer growing fast, with a domestic chocolate industry large enough to absorb most of the crop and a craft sector emerging alongside it.

Associated with: nutty, spicy, earthy

One of the largest producers in the world, and the clearest case anywhere of an origin whose reputation is set by a post-harvest shortcut rather than by its beans.

Associated with: earthy, nutty, bitter

The largest cacao producer in the world by a wide margin. Most chocolate anyone has ever eaten contains Ivorian cacao, and almost none of it says so.

Associated with: roasted, bitter, nutty

A small Caribbean producer with a long cacao history, where the crop is often grown mixed with coffee, spice and fruit rather than in dedicated plantations.

Associated with: fruity, spicy, nutty

A small producer with an outsized reputation, almost entirely from one valley, for bright red-fruit acidity unlike anything in West Africa.

Associated with: fruity, acidic

A country that grows very little cacao and processes an enormous amount of it. The clearest example of the difference between growing and grinding.

Where cacao became chocolate. A modest producer today, and the origin whose significance is cultural and historical rather than commercial.

Associated with: nutty, spicy, earthy

A small producer with cooperative-organised growing in the Matagalpa and Waslala regions, and a share of rare native material in the mix.

Associated with: nutty, caramel, earthy

A major West African producer whose cacao sector was displaced by oil and has been partially rebuilt since.

Associated with: roasted, bitter, earthy

A very small producer, concentrated in Bocas del Toro and grown largely by Ngäbe-Buglé communities under organic certification.

Associated with: fruity, floral, acidic

A Pacific producer whose beans are frequently smoky — and where that smoke is a drying artefact that some makers now prize and others work to eliminate.

Associated with: fruity, earthy, roasted

The origin with the greatest genetic diversity in the catalogue, sitting inside cacao's centre of origin, and the one where 'single-origin Peru' says least.

Associated with: fruity, nutty, floral

A small producer with a four-century cacao history and a distinctive domestic tradition — tablea, the pressed cacao tablet used for breakfast chocolate.

Associated with: nutty, earthy, fruity

Two small Atlantic islands that were once the largest cacao producer in the world, and where the modern crop grows through the ruins of the plantations that made them so.

Associated with: earthy, nutty, fruity

A small West African producer rebuilding a cacao sector interrupted by civil conflict, with speciality output emerging from the east of the country.

Associated with: earthy, fruity

A very small Pacific producer with the same wood-fire drying legacy as Papua New Guinea, and a comparable smoky signature.

Associated with: earthy, nutty, fruity

A small East African producer that has built a disproportionate speciality reputation in a short time, mostly from the Kilombero valley.

Associated with: fruity, acidic, nutty

Where Trinitario came from, and where much of the world's applied cacao science was done. The current crop is tiny; the influence is everywhere.

Associated with: spicy, nutty, fruity

A growing East African producer, with organic certification widespread and a speciality sector expanding from the Bundibugyo region.

Associated with: fruity, earthy, acidic

Historically the most prestigious origin in the world, home to Chuao and Porcelana, and the origin where the modern reputation is doing the most work relative to current volumes.

Associated with: nutty, floral, caramel

A small producer with an unusually high proportion of fine-flavour output, and a domestic bean-to-bar sector that manufactures at origin.

Associated with: fruity, spicy, acidic